Incas, Mayas, and Aztecs: ancient civilizations of the New World

Incas Aztecs

Ancient Peru

The great and powerful force of El Nino has visited utter devastation upon my people and the people of our neighboring coastal regions. By consequence, I am all that remains of the royal bloodline both here in my domain and in the surrounding regions. It is therefore incumbent upon me to invoke the lessons learned by my ancestors in maintaining their rule as well as to heed the knowledge gained by this most recent disaster.

First and foremost, it seems that now is the time in the history of my people for us to move inland for new settlement. As my grandfather admonished me, ours is a kingdom which has been recurrently vulnerable to the fickle nature of the gods vis a vis earthquakes, flooding and the utter ruin created thereby. While our settlement in the coastal region has brought us considerable prosperity, it is truly devastating to rebuild our civilization every generation. Therefore, we consider the home effectively created by other tribes such as the Paijin people who have successfully forged mountain dwelling. As we find in consideration of such kingdoms, "places located at higher altitudes seem to have been also occupied at this time; for instance, one may cite the excavations of Pachamachay Cave, situated inland at an elevation of 4300 metres and occupied by hunger-gatherers who preyed upon various cameloid species which abounded in the region." (Davies, p. 2)

The success of these civilizations is not just found in their survival but in their thriving. One of the major strategies that we must emulate if we are to rebuild our society in the non-coastal region is the wholesale engagement in agriculture. My ancestors lived as nomads just before we came to settle by the great ocean. Agriculture would come to depend on the more stationary lifestyle increasingly established in just the last few centuries with some of its greatest accomplishments occurring in the mountainous regions and foothills upon which we now set our sights. According to my understanding of our peoples' history, "irrigation starts remarkably early in the Andes. You're getting agriculture based on irrigation in the Andes as early as anything seen in the rest of the New World" (Bakalar, p. 1)

This denotes a tremendous opportunity for our people and for my ruling family in particular, to establish a stationary way of life that is sustainable and also immune to the capriciousness of the sea. It will then be up to the will of the gods to protect my family and our subjects from the scourge of famine. For indeed, no small part of our power to govern is based in our ability to administrate, distribute and sustain the food resources available to us. In this, we are benefited by the absolute enormity and breadth of arable lands available to our ends.

In addition to their availability, the accessibility of such lands is a critical factor in shaping our kingdom's continuity. In the midst of such calamity, we are fortunate to report that we know no true enemies and that the provision for our defense has rarely been a priority significant enough to shape our future or our fortunes. These are, instead, shaped entirely by the resources which are at our arm's length for survival and the defenses or preventative measures at our disposal in contending with the always unpredictable elements.

Thus, my newly established kingdom will follow the example forged by our counterparts who have found survival feasible and even ideal in the non-coastal regions and by those kingdoms which have made their viability, longevity and sophistication and product of their highly advanced agricultural prerogatives.

Question 2:

In the shadow of an upcoming recreation of the Inti Raymi festival, it is appropriate to reflect on the essential role played by religion in the evolution of Peruvian culture prior to the arrival of the Europeans. The nine day festival approaching in late June is intended to honor Inti, the Sun God. The festival's importance is found not just in its explicit celebrations of the harvest, the winter solstice and the deity connected with the warmth, heat and sustenance of the sun but additionally in its demonstration of the ancient cultural heritage of Peru. Indeed, most especially in the time of the Incan kingdom's rule, this was a context where spirituality marked all aspects of Peruvian daily life.

The connection between religious worship and the sun demonstrates the degree to which this permeation occurred. Contrary to the Judeo-Christian tradition that would soon invade the region, religious observance was less bound to a Creator deity than it was to this deity of the elements. According to Davis, Viracocha is the deity to whom the creation of man and earth are attributed in Incan mythology, however a far greater cultural and practical emphasis seems to have been placed on Inti instead. (Davies, p. 143)

This is consistent with the religious orientation of many of the great and small kingdoms of pre-Spanish South America. Indeed, the highly agrarian nature of the civilizations achieved in this time and place would lead to an inextricable connection between patterns impacting the harvest and the divine implications thereby invoked. Consequently, many of the religious traditions preceding and surrounding the Incans would take the perspective that significant daily affairs relating to survival were instigated directly by the gods and especially by those such as Inti with so great a power to effect human experience. As Adams (1996) observes, "intellectually, there were certain cross-cutting philosophical and religious principles. One seet was bound up with the fatalistic cosmologies of the Mesoamericns. Humans lived in a hostile world with capricious gods." (Adams, p. 20)